Chapter 1: Alara
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No one was quite sure about Cecil's plan. Kain, the traitor, had made a proposition for them: bring the earth crystal from Troia to Golbez, and they'd release Rosa in exchange. Cid and Yang were just as eager as Cecil to get her back (Tellah was too, but he'd never met Rosa before, and, unfortunately, never would), but stealing Troia's crystal? There had to be some other way. None the less, Cecil told Cid to fly the party of four to Troia.
"Surely, you don't mean to do as he says?" Yang protested.
"No, we're going to protect it. I've already taken one crystal; I'm not doing that again," Cecil explained. Finally, after a brief argument with Cid and Tellah, they were flying to Troia; completely unaware of the odd twist that fate had in store for them.
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After a day's filght, they landed The Enterprise just outside of Troia and huried to the castle. They quickly explained their visit to the guard at the gate, and he ushered them inside. He led them to to the inn, and returned to his post. As soon as they had a room, they went to the pub for dinner. Everyone tried not to notice that Cecil didn't eat that much, but they didn't say anything.
After a while, a pretty young girl and an older woman walked into the pub. The old woman carried a small basket in the crook of one arm, and the girl had a handful of gil. She looked about Rosa's age (19, if you don't know). She wore a light pruple dress, and her long aruburn hair was curly and tied loosely back with a white ribbon. The older one was a little shorter than the girl, and wore a yellow dress. Her silvery hair, which still had touches of brown, was tied in a firm knot at the nape of her neck.
"Pay me no mind," The old one said, setting the basket on the counter. "Leave it all to Alara." She turned to the girl and said "I'll be in the infirmery on the other end of the castle."
"Emore, I don't know. Are you sure I'm ready?" The girl asked nervously. "I'm terrible with lists, you know."
"You'll make me proud, Alara. You've never let me down," Emore, the castle healer said to her up-and-coming student, and she left.
The girl, Alara, handed the man on the other side of the counter a list, along with her gil. The man quickly filled Alara's basket, but said to her, "You're three gil short of this order, Larie."
Alara sighed, and searched her pockets unsuccessfully for three more coins. Cecil, who'd been listening, got up and handed Alara three of his own gil. He could see that her order (healing items and some strange looking plants) was extremely important.
"Thank you very much, sir," Alara said sweetly.
"Don't mention it. I like to think I do something nice for somebody, every now and then," Cecil said bleakly and sat back down.
"So, Larie," The man at the counter said ("Larie" was Alara's nickname), "How's your patient mending?"
"Still no improvement. His constitution isn't so great. But he finally woke up long enough to tell me a little bit about himself," Alara explained. "He said that his name is Edward, and that he's the prince of Damcyan," She said.
Cecil and Tellah looked up from their plates, and Yang choked on his his drink.
"Where is he?" Cecil asked eagerly.
"Why? Do you know him?" Alara asked.
"We thought he died in a shipwreck last month," Yang explained, still coughing.
Alara looked surprised, but she took her basket off the counter and said, "If you're done with dinner, you can come and see him." Everyone jumpped up and followed Alara down the hall; even Cid, even though he didn't really know who everyone was talking about.
Rounding a turn, Alara opened the first door she came to and walked in. The others followed her in, noticing how the room smelled rather strongly of chamomlie, mint, ethers and potions. There were about five beds lined up against the back wall, but only one of them was occupied. Alara set her basket down on a counter and walked over to the bed. She whispered something to her patient, who then began asking, "Where? Let me see them, please."
"Be still. You're getting too excited," Alara said to him. Turning back to the party, she said, "He can't handle all this excitment right now. Maybe you should come another time."
But her patient grabbed her by the arm and said quickly "No. I'm fine. I'm okay. Bring them to me, please." Alara still looked reluctant, but she motioned to the party to come over.
Cecil and Tellah reached the bed first. Edward's state shocked them both. His face was covered in painful looking bruises, and both his arms were broken. His brown eyes were glassy with fatigue, but they came back to life when he saw the two figures hoovering over him. He was slightly surprised to recognize Cecil right away, even though he'd only seen his face once or twice (Cecil had the kind of face that one doesn't forget easily). But he cringed slightly when he saw Tellah there too; how could Edward forget the sage?
"I'm sorry," He whispered to Tellah, not knowing what else to say.
"Think not on that. You need your rest," Tellah commanded, knowing what Edward ment; now wasn't the time to bring up Anna's death, even if it still wieghed heavily on both their minds.
"We're so relieved that you survived the shipwreck," Cecil said after a pause. Edward ventured a small simle.
"We thought you were dead for sure," Yang said, coming over (he'd taken his time in walking over).
"Yang! You're alrigh too!" Edward exclaimed, almost trying to sit up again, and then thinking better of it. "So, we've all aurrvived the shipwreck," Edward concluded, feeling ever so relieved. "Where's Rydia?" He asked, glancing around and feeling nervousness come creeping back in.
Yang hung his head and said slowly, "I tried... I almost had her... I..." He turned around, rubbed his eyes, and mummbled, "Drat; there must still be sea-salt in my eyes."
There was an uncomfortable pause. "Not Rydia..." Edward breathed. He felt like crying, but he didn't. Not while Tellah was here. And besides, Rydia had been the one who taught him that there was a time for tears, and a time for action. He had time to cry for his dear little friend later. Right now, there things he needed to know from his friends.
"Is Rosa okay?" He asked cautiously.
"Kain made a deal with us," Cecil explained. "He said that if we bring him Troia's crystal, he'd release Rosa."
Alara's eyes went wide with horror. "You wouldn't!" She cried.
"We're not. If we don't get it, Kain'll come to get it himself. We're guarding it while we think of a plan," Cecil explained.
"There's nothing to guard," Alara informed sadly. "The crystal was stolen by a dark elf last month."
"Then we should all go and get it!" Cid suggested, speaking for the first time on the other side of the room. Edward tried to see over the bed stand who was talking without moving very much, but failed.
"Cid, come over here," Cecil called, and Cid strode over to the bed.
He leaned against the bed post, grinned, and said loudly, but happilly, "I've heard good things about you, kid. Heard that you took mighty good care of Cecil and Rosa while they were gone."
"Cid?" Edward asked. "Cid the engineer?"
"Yup. That's me!" Cid said proudly.
"So... that must mean... you've got the ariship?" Edward asked excitedly. The party nodded.
"We flew here on it," Yang commented. Edward sighed; at least one thing had gone right so far.
"So, you plan to get the earth crystal from the drak elf?" He asked.
"We came here to protect the crystal; we have to get it back," Cecil said firmly, but rather shakily. He obviously knew that this would be a daunting task.
Edward thought for a minute about it and said to Alara, "Look in my bag and bring me the first harp that you find." Alara went to a shelf nearby and took down a small draw-string bag. After rummaging around through everything else inside it, she produced a rather plain looking harp and brought it to Edward. He looked it over carefully and handed it to Cecil.
"What is it?" Cecil asked.
"It's the only way I can help you now. Take that harp with you into the dark elf's cave, and it'll come in handy; I'm sure," Edward explained. Cecil examined it, a little confused over how helpful a harp could be, and thanked his friend for the help.
Alara looked around the room and finally said to Edward, "I think you should rest now. You should have been sleeping all this time, and I'm sure you want to get better." Edward gave his nurse a sheepish look, but said nothing.
"I understand what you mean," Tellah said and began herding the party out of the room with a quick good-bye to Edward. Alara followed them out.
Outside, Yang, Cid, and Tellah were turning to go back to the inn, but Cecil hung back. "Are you coming, Cecil?" Yang called over his shoulder.
"I was going to look around for a while. I'll be back later," Cecil said casually, leaning against the wall.
"Suit yourself," Yang said, and went to catch up with the other party members. Cecil watched them dissapear around the corner, and began absent-mindedly rubbing his hand arcoss the odd little harp in his hand. Alara tugged on his sleeve and he looked up (or, rather down) at the girl.
"If you're going after the dark elf, you should know that he's weak against metalic weapons," She said.
"Then this fight should go well," Cecil said, sounding relieved.
"But he's put up a magnetic field around his cave. You won't be able to use metalic weapons or wear metal armor," She added.
Cecil looked down at the harp, sighed saddly, and nodded. "Thank you for the tip, ma'am," He said.
"Call me Alara, like everyone else, sir," She said sweetly.
"You can call me Cecil, like everyone else," Cecil said, managing to smile at her. She smiled back, though she senced that he was distressed and she probably couldn't help.
"You seem troubled," She said, leaning against the wall.
"I've got a lot on my mind right now," Cecil said quietly, stroking the harp again.
"Does it have anything to do with the two women that you were speaking of before?" Alara asked.
"Rydia and Rosa? Yes, it's them," He said.
"Want to talk about it?" Alara asked, sounding a bit like a mental-case worker. Cecil sighed and launched into his story.
"We lost Rydia on the same shipwreck that Edward was on. Rosa was kiddnaped a few days before that," Cecil explained.
"I'm sorry. I hope you can think of a way to save Rosa," Alara said.
"I'm worried there might not be another way to save her..." Cecil said, trailing off. Alara could tell that there was a lot this blonde knight had on his chest, but that he was having difficulty talking about it. She decided to try again later.
"Well, I'm sorry about your loss. I do hope that you come up with something," Alara said, and she returned to the infirmery.
"Yeah, me too. I love Rosa so much. If anything were to happen to her, I don't know if I'd be able to go on," Cecil said to the air when Alara was gone.
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Sometimes, I lie awake, thinking about Anna. I miss her terribley. I wish she were back here, with me. Vengance was never my thing, really, but I've strongly considered it on her part. You can't just tear a love like that apart; it's so wrong... And it causes such destruction.
But being as broken as I am has also given me time to think over what Anna said to me when I saw her spirit in Kaipo. She said, "Love the people as you loved me", remember? Er... well, I don't really excpect you to remember that; it's not like you were there. But anyways, I've thought pretty deeply about that. Perhaps she meant for me to find someone new to really love at the same time?
I hope so; I'm falling in love with Alara...